Meanie Mienfoo Troubles
by Yogurt-Time
Summary: Nate pays a visit to Humilau City, but the elderly Mienfoo owner needs him to look after her Pokemon for a day. How will Nate fare against the small yet powerful Pokemon?


**This story is a change of pace from my usual writing. As such, this story contains no smut or any intended form of male/male relationship. I hope you can enjoy it all the same.**

* * *

Nate was already starting to wonder why he had agreed to this. All he had wanted was a simple day of relaxation in sunny Humilau City, but in doing so he had committed the unfortunate act of visiting the wrong place at the right time. The boy had never really been partial to the certain old woman living in one of the city's many beach huts; the little old lady who raised and though she would never admit it, pampered, a small Mienfoo, an energetic Fighting-type Pokemon. But it was too late to reconsider; the woman was already hastily packing her bags, ready to head to Driftveil City to see a very special iteration of the Pokemon World Tournament.

_What's so interesting about this tournament?_ Nate wondered to himself. _It's not like I'm going to be in it… _Whoever the participants and whatever the outcome, he knew that he need not follow too closely himself, for it was certain that Hugh would call him the next day, describing the entire event in verbose detail.

The elderly woman coddled her Mienfoo, spouting various terms of endearment that Nate found distastefully soppy. She then turned to the boy and wagged a thin finger in his direction. "Now you be very careful with my Mienfoo, do you hear me? If something goes wrong, you will be held responsible, no matter what!"

Nate just scratched his head.

She continued without paying heed to his ignorance, her voice harrowingly icy. "If Mienfoo breaks a nail, I will blame you. If a Pidove flies in and pecks Mienfoo's face, I will blame you. If a tsunami suddenly comes in, wrecks the entire house and gets Mienfoo's fur wet… I will blame you. Is that understood?" Nate responded with an off-handed nod.

"Excellent," she chimed in a suddenly-cheerful manner. "I'll be going now, see you in a day. Toodle-oo!" And just like that, she marched out of the house with her bags loaded with luggage. Once she was out of sight, Nate looked down at the small Pokemon. If an old lady could take care of this overgrown Patrat of a Pokemon, surely babysitting it for one day should be a cakewalk?

"**Yeeeehhh! Yeeeeeehhh!"** A piercing wail came from the Mienfoo's mouth, breaking Nate's concentration. His instincts urged him to silence the noisome Pokemon by any means necessary, but he remembered what its owner had told him. To Nate's regret, harming the brat was entirely out of the question. As the Pokemon continued to howl like a siren, Nate switched on the wide-screen TV at the far end of the room, hoping that a few dozen hours of mind-dulling entertainment would assuage the Mienfoo's tantrum.

"What the hell?!" Nate repeatedly pressed the remote's buttons to cycle through each channel, but they all displayed the same image: an imposing "CHANNEL BLOCKED" caption over a blank background."What's the point of having a TV if you're not going to watch anything on it?" lamented the boy, shortly before encountering the single channel that was not blocked… an all-day test pattern broadcast. Nate slapped the screen in frustration, hoping that the TV was only malfunctioning due to a rogue Rotom hiding within, or something equally annoying. The Mienfoo continued to yell throughout, thumping its paws against the floor to create additional noise.

The sudden impact was enough to somehow allow the television to display something worth watching; Nate's eyes widened in excitement as he watched a famous, fair-haired teenager walk onstage, bringing a microphone to his lips, and then singing in a harmonious, silky voice, "_Let's ride the ferris wheel, baby, I wanna take a ride with you, oh oh…_"

"Awwwww yeah, it's Christoph!" Nate blurted, remembering how much he practically worshipped the young star. Ever since he had first watched one of his music videos, Nate had admired how Christoph, in his eyes, was so outstanding, so amazingly talented, so cute… No, no, it was better not to think such things. At any rate, he was grateful to see that the music seemed to have silenced Mienfoo, allowing him to watch the idol's song in peace.

"_When I ride with you, baby, baby, I just wanna shout-__** KAASSHBZZ-BZZ-bzzzz…**_" Nate balked in surprise as Christoph's illustrious image and sounds were suddenly replaced with a blank, cracked screen that hissed with stray electricity, a priceless flower vase embedded in the center, still holding a small bouquet of white roses. He could clearly see now that Mienfoo was not as big an aficionado of the current chart-toppers as he would have hoped, and the small, bipedal Pokemon resumed its tempestuous outburst, upsetting its owner's furniture as it rampaged.

Nate couldn't understand why Mienfoo was so upset. Did it want to walk? Was it hungry? He needed the opinions of someone more experienced than himself; someone sensible, level-headed… perhaps with a smart sense of fashion, and a nice tie even? Luckily for him, he had his Xtransceiver with him at all times, and he just so happened to have the number of the person best suited for the job.

"Biancaaaaaaaa-!" Nate yelled into the speaker. He didn't really want to startle the poor girl, but she had to know that this was a pretty dire situation; he could not say what the old woman would do with him if he were to fail her, but he didn't want to find out firsthand.

The girl in the green hat just giggled absentmindedly, as if it was all some obscure joke. "Hello, Nate, sweetums. How are you today? Musharna, say hi to Natey-watey!" Bianca's dream-eating Pokemon drifted into view of Nate's screen, creating spumes of thick pink smoke that wafted in the air. Nate didn't have time to make light conversation with her though, and he abruptly changed the subject, "Bianca, I have a problem with a rowdy Mienfoo who won't stop destroying everything in sight! What should I do?"

Nate listened intently as the girl on his Xtransceiver's screen mused, pausing for a good while before answering, "Hmm… that reminds me of that time I got my first Pokemon. I used that little cutie patootie to battle my best friend, and we ended up making a Foongus-humongous mess of the place! Ahh, good times…"

Glass began to shatter from behind Nate's back, and he was getting tired of Bianca's accidental stalling. "Just tell me what to do!" he urged.

Bianca huffed, as if Nate was being inconsiderate for interrupting her riveting anecdotes. "Well, well, aren't you an impatient little boy… Anyway, all Mienfoo have one thing in common, besides being the cutest little things ever, awwww. They'll always behave themselves if you give them lots of- Pizza, yay!" She had successfully intercepted her own sentence due to Professor Juniper having entered her room, holding a large box of half-eaten pizza… but that fact was all unknown to the boy on the other end of the conversation.

"Pizza? Got it, thanks Bianca!" Nate hung up without delay, making the unfortunate mistake of completely misinterpreting the ditzy girl's disjointed words. But that solution had only opened the door of another problem: he would have to procure some pizza of his own, and he didn't know the number of Unova's pizzeria chain. He decided, then, that this batch of delicious, cheesy, baked goods would be made by his own hands.

Nate then headed into the kitchen, tying on the frilly pink apron that hung by a hook next to the door. Even as he could hear all kinds of bedlam ensuing in the living room, he didn't particularly feel like caring. With nobody to see him indulge in his guilty pleasure, the kitchen would be his Zen garden.

He had never wanted to tell Hugh, or his mother, or even that bun-haired girl he met at the Battle Subway, but cooking was secretly one of his favorite interests. However, when it came to actually following recipes, he wasn't exactly the sharpest drawer in the knives… or so he thought that was how the saying goes. Using whatever ingredients the old lady had stored, Nate got to work, trying his best to remember how a pizza was made. It wasn't long before Mienfoo had noticed Nate was no longer in the living room, and followed him into the kitchen to pester him more, throwing cabinet doors open and scattering various pots and pans, threatening to disrupt his train of thought.

He had barely managed to place his pizza – if one could really call his hastily-constructed travesty among comestibles a pizza – in the oven before Mienfoo's tantrum-induced chaos had finally burnt down the last of Nate's fuse. Having the sanctity of his borrowed kitchen disturbed, he lost his temper and pulled out a Poke Ball from his pockets, throwing it into the room to summon a Pokemon that he hoped would put the bratty Fighting Pokemon in its place.

The orange-skinned, mohawk-topped lizard Pokemon clutched at the drooping pelt around its waist as it turned its round head to its trainer, awaiting its orders. "Scrafty, use Ice Punch!" commanded Nate, his voice heavy with aggravation. Scrafty wasn't completely certain about what was going on, but complied without protest, throwing a fist cloaked in a pale blue glow towards its opponent. Nate's Pokemon had acted swiftly, but the Mienfoo was faster still, deftly jumping away to evade the attack. Scrafty was persistent though, continuing to lunge at the smaller Pokemon. It had taken all of thirty minutes for the lizard Pokemon to finally hit its mark; the constant dodging had taken its toll on Mienfoo's stamina, and it couldn't run quickly enough. When the chilled fist had made contact, the mustelid Pokemon was engulfed in a cloud of frigid fog, freezing it in place.

"Good job, Scrafty!" With the slap of a high-five, Nate congratulated his Pokemon for saving the day; now all that remained was to wait for the pizza to finish cooking, and Nate would be able to placate the Mienfoo with his so-called "delectable banquet" of pizza… after defrosting it of course. Nate sighed with relief as he sat upon a kitchen stool. Everything was under control, when suddenly…

"**Suuuup, brah!**"

Nate jumped to attention when he heard the familiar drawling voice, hastily tearing off the apron he had tied around himself and tossing it aside before the tanned, shirtless figure entered the kitchen. He wasn't sure how Marlon had snuck his way into the house, but then again the sea-loving Gym Leader had always been prone to making unexpected appearances.

"Yo, little man, what's da happity-haps? You cookin' up some awesome grub for ya and yer Scraft-bro ta chow down on?" Marlon had asked that out of genuine curiosity, but Nate didn't want the man to think he was some kind of "wimpy girly-pants gourmet chef."

"N-no! I've never cooked before in my life, I swear! Cooking is stupid, that's why they made fast food, right?" The boy was quick to object, but his efforts had been in vain once Marlon had pointed to whatever was stewing in the heat of the oven. "Then who went and put dat crazy-lookin' shizz in da oven, then?"

Nate didn't bother to answer, distracting Marlon with a change of subject. "What are you doing here, anyway? Don't you have a Gym to run?"

The tanned man responded by throwing down the net that had been slung over his shoulder, revealing its contents: about a dozen cans of soda, and several bags of chips. "Yo, I heard some wild-ass noise goin' down in dis joint, man. Sounded like a hell of a party and I wanted in, y'know? Why don't we go 'n watch dat slammin' Pokemon Tournament dealie, kemo sabe? It's gonna be totally sweet, bro!"

Nate exchanged a grimace with his Scrafty, though its standard face had always been a bit of a grimace itself. "I think that channel's blocked here… also the TV's busted," he remarked, as though such disarray was par for the course.

"Duuuuude…" Marlon replied; Nate had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but it didn't matter as the Gym Leader finally took notice of the Mienfoo in the kitchen, cold and unmoving as an ice sculpture. "Say, what's with da Poke-popsicle dere? I'd better take care of all dat, y'know?" Before Nate could warn him about what evil he would unleash, Marlon pulled out a Poke Ball from inside his cyan swimming pants, receiving shocked silent stares from the boy and his Scrafty. Marlon paid no notice to their astonishment as he released the Pokemon inside the ball, a large, rotund Wailmer that the kitchen space barely managed to accommodate. The Gym Leader of Humilau City pointed a tanned finger towards the frozen Pokemon and gave his instruction, "Yo Wail-bro, Scald dat sucker!"

The Wailmer tilted its head down, aiming its blowholes to fire its attack. A huge water jet was launched from the tiny holes, and Nate had to duck to prevent himself from getting boiled over by the steaming salvo. The hot stream of water easily thawed the Mienfoo out of its icy imprisonment, and now that it was free, it wasted no time in resuming its catastrophic episode, tossing various items out of the fridge to splatter against the kitchen walls.

"Marlon, whyyyyy?!" Nate tugged at the bushy hair protruding from above his favorite red visor, staring in bewilderment at the blue-haired man, who had already opened up a bag of potato chips, chewing loudly as he shared the salty snack with Wailmer and Scrafty. "Everything was going so well until you unfroze that furry little nightmare!"

"No need ta be such a negative nancy, broski. If ya could handle dem Team Plasma dudes, how can dis possibly be any harder, ya dig?" Marlon tried to reassure the boy, while stepping to the side to avoid a jar of mayonnaise gone ballistic.

Nate could almost feel his eyelids twitching in stress, and he retorted, "I don't think you know what I'm dealing with here. This freaking Mienfoo has been a gigantic pain in my-"

On top of the ambient commotion, a loud bell chime had drowned out the last word he had uttered, indicating that the oven had finished its cooking. Slipping a pair of oven mittens over his hands, Nate excitedly squealed, "Whee, the pizza's done!" before he reached inside, pulling out a flat tray that yielded a black, molten substance that vaguely smelt like charred berries and toast.

"Yo man, dat stuff looks wack, fo' reals!" Marlon exclaimed, scratching his seawater-soaked head as he tried to make sense of what the young trainer had just concocted.

"Thanks, Marlon. It's a special Nate recipe, but I didn't cook it myself, I swear." The boy took the man's words as a compliment as he scraped the viscous material off of the oven tray with a large spoon, dropping the entire mixture on a plate. "I think I may have added too many mashed pickled eggs though…"

The Mienfoo, who had managed to empty the entire fridge, gazed upon the plate as Nate offered what he still insisted was a "pizza" to it. The Pokemon didn't even give a second thought to gobbling at the strange mixture; gigantic fits of ill temper did have a knack for leaving one hungry, and Mienfoo couldn't afford to be finicky after wasting every other piece of food in the house. Nate didn't move as he watched his customer finish the last of its meal, hoping he had done a satisfactory job. Licking its lips, Mienfoo belched loudly as its eyes looked glazed, possibly in satiation, or more likely because…

Nate smiled as the rambunctious Pokemon was finally rendered docile, slumped on the ground in a comatose state. He began to cheer, "Yeah, Bianca was right! All I needed to do was give it some pizza! Did you see that, Marl-"

Nate turned away from the unconscious Mienfoo to see that Marlon and his Wailmer had already left the house; he had jumped with his Pokemon out of the nearest window, and the seafaring duo were now bobbing about in the ocean's waves, drifting aimlessly. The boy simply shrugged, and left his Scrafty to finish the last of the soda and chips that were left behind, while he walked to the living room to lie down on the slightly-torn couch, falling asleep in a matter of minutes.

The next morning, Nate woke up, and dreadful realization had finally caught up with him; he had no idea how to explain to the house owner the atrocious state he had allowed her unruly Pokemon to leave her home in. However, as he opened his dark-brown eyes, he couldn't believe what he saw; he noticed that the living room looked immaculately pristine, as though the entire previous day's worth of damage had been undone in a single step. The furniture was in its proper position, all the torn books had been shelved away, and even the ornately decorated trash can in the corner was empty, as it should have been.

Nate headed towards the kitchen, to see if his luck would continue. There, he saw no mess, no scattered cooking utensils, and Mienfoo remaining where it had been the day before. However, the room was not entirely free of unusual sights; Nate's jaw dropped as he found out who was responsible for cleaning the entire house from top to bottom… his Scrafty.

The lizard Pokemon brushed at the tile floor with a soapy mop, its baggy molted skin pants bulging with a Garbodor's worth of collected trash. Like its trainer, it appeared that Scrafty too secretly took pleasure in an unlikely pastime; in the Pokemon's case, it was cleaning.

"Scrafty… I don't know how to thank you," the trainer admitted, clasping a hand to his forehead. The lizard Pokemon simply nodded and curved its toothy mouth into a smile; the very opportunity to clean such a huge, seemingly insurmountable mess was rewarding enough.

Later, a distinctly elderly, female voice crooned from outside, "Oh Mienfoo, I'm ho-oooome!" Nate quickly recalled Scrafty into its ball before standing at the doorway to greet the old woman who had finally returned home, assisting her in carrying the heavy luggage inside the house.

"I swear, that Cynthia is nothing but a no-good cheating little…" the lady muttered under her breath; apparently the results of yesterday's Pokemon World Tournament had left a bitter taste in her mouth, one far worse than that which Nate had administered to her beloved Pokemon. "Now, sonny, where is my dearest darling Mienfoo? I certainly hope you've been treating my precious Pokemon well."

Nate didn't quite know how to answer as he led the old woman into her kitchen, where she saw Mienfoo laying prone against the floor, barely breathing. "My Mienfoo!" she gasped, "I don't believe it!"

Nate's teeth chattered from behind his clenched lips.

"Mienfoo's sleeping just like a little baby, isn't that the most adorable thing you have ever seen?" She picked her Pokemon up, cradling the small body in her bony arms. Mienfoo opened its eyes briefly to see the wrinkled face of its doting owner, and jumped down, suddenly full of energy. Impressed with the results of Nate's Pokemon-sitting, the lady decided that the boy was deserving of a proper reward. "You've exceeded my expectations, sonny. I thought for sure the house would look like a complete wreck by the time I returned. Here is your reward." Nate eagerly held out his hands, cupped together to collect whatever the woman was searching for in her purse. Reaching inside, she gave him but a single pearl. Nate thanked her for her generosity, choosing not to express his true feelings about the entire ordeal.

As the boy began to depart, the old woman sat down at her favorite couch with her Mienfoo by her side, ready to watch some television.

"How odd… just how did that boy manage to un-block the flower vase channel? You know, Mienfoo, I have a vase just like that one, even the flowers match!"


End file.
